


Summon Me

by hallow777



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Carmilla Big Bang 2015, F/F, Oops I Summoned A Demon AU, Witch!Perry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5256395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallow777/pseuds/hallow777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Right okay, so we may have summoned a demon and it’s currently lounging on my couch and eating all my food.” </i>
</p><p>When Laura and Lafontaine get drunk for Laura's birthday and Lafontaine suggests they try summoning a demon, Laura doesn't think anything of it because it's not like it will actually work, right? </p><p>The next morning though, Laura wakes up to find that she's suddenly got herself a dark haired grumpy demon roommate who refuses to leave.</p><p>What's a girl to do?</p><p>Based on the "Oops I accidentally summoned a demon" tumblr AU prompt</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fangs_for_the_memories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangs_for_the_memories/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gifted to fangs_for_the_memories just because you are awesome. And I feel like you are going to like this one.

**Be sure and check out ciarabarclay's[fanart](http://ciarabarclay.tumblr.com/post/133656303018/my-art-for-the-carmilla-big-bang-super-awsome-to) for this fanfic, it's amazing!**

* * *

 “Um, Perry? You got a second?” Laura asked as she peeked her head into the slightly older girl’s apartment. Even though they weren’t in college anymore, the former floor don usually left her door unlocked in case anyone needed her. They lived in a small apartment building that required a key to get in the building itself and most of the people living there were former college students so she didn’t worry about how unsafe it probably was to leave her door unlocked most of the time.

“What is it, Laura?” Perry stood up from where she was watching TV on the couch and gestured for Laura to come in. She’d known Laura for years now after they had ended up at college together but Laura never really asked for help with any problems, so whatever it was, it must be pretty bad.

Laura slipped through the door and shut it behind her, standing there awkwardly shuffling her feet around until she finally took a deep breath and looked at Perry, “so uh, you know how Lafontaine and I got really drunk for my birthday last night?”

“Yes, I was the one who drove us all back, remember? Then you two were asleep before we even made it home. Are you worried that you did something you’d regret while we were at the club? Because other than some um… questionable dancing you have nothing to worry about.”

“No, uh after you got us both home and in our own apartments Laf came over and we might have drank a little bit more…”

Perry looked at the smaller girl weirdly, not really sure how to phrase this, “Laura if something, uh, happened between you and Lafontaine then you need to be talking to them about-”

“-No! I mean no it wasn’t like that, sorry. We did do something really stupid though…” she trailed off.

“Laura, you know I am always here to help you but I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened, okay?” Perry stood up and walked over to Laura, taking her hands and squeezing them gently, trying to reassure the girl. It couldn’t be that bad, it was Laura and Lafontaine, just how much trouble could they get into? She figured it was something like a failed experiment she couldn’t clean off the walls.

“Right okay, so we may have summoned a demon and it’s currently lounging on my couch and eating all my food.”

Scratch that, clearly they could get into a lot of trouble.

* * *

**Last Night:**

Laura was just about to fall asleep after having been guided to bed by Perry when a knocking sounded on the door. She wanted to ignore it but it just kept on so she finally swung her legs out of bed and went to answer the door. She didn’t really think too hard about who it could have been at her door but she was surprised to see that it was Lafontaine.

“Hi, again? You need something?”

“Nah, it’s all good I just wasn’t quite ready for the night to end yet and thought you might want to join me in a few more drinks with this vodka I forgot I had?” They were already so drunk they were leaning against the doorframe, slouching more and more as they talked but it sounded like a good idea to Laura so she let her friend in anyway. A few more drinks wouldn’t hurt right?

After all, it was her birthday.

As it turned out, a “few drinks” to Lafontaine apparently just meant a “few straight shots of vodka”.

Only a few shots in, Laura was beyond drunk and was lying on her floor complaining about the ceiling spinning when she looked over and noticed some chalk underneath her couch. She couldn’t for the life of her remember why or how she had chalk just lying around but she pulled it out and showed her treasure to an equally drunk Lafontaine who grabbed it with glee.

Lafontaine grabbed the chalk quicker than Laura’s brain could react so it took a second for her to let go of the chalk but the jerking motion on her hand was already too much and Laura barely made it down the hall and into the bathroom before she threw up anything that was left in her stomach.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Laura didn’t know how long she had stayed in there hugging her new toilet friend but eventually she got her legs underneath her long enough to walk back into her living room to check on Lafontaine.

Except, her living room didn’t look like her living room anymore. The couch was pushed back against the wall and so was the coffee table so that there was a very clear area on her hardwood floor. In the middle of the suddenly clear area, Lafontaine was lying on their stomach drawing a very complicated circle on her floor with the chalk.

“Whatcha doing?” Laura asked as she came and took a seat next to the circle, admiring the work that was put into it. It was impressive even if it looked like something that belonged in a horror movie.

“I’m going to summon a demon for your birthday,” the words were very slurred but Laura caught the gist of it.

“How?” Laura thought that maybe she should be a little more concerned about this but it wasn’t like this stuff actually worked, right? Plus, even though most of the vodka shots she drank weren’t currently in her stomach anymore, there was plenty in her system for her to not really think very hard about things.

“Perry showed me how when we were little and she was still training to be a witch. She said never eeeever do this but it’s your birthday so it doesn’t count, right?”

“Definitely doesn’t count,” Laura giggled to herself as she watched Lafontaine carefully draw the circle and its various shapes and letters. That was just silly. Perry couldn’t be a witch, Perry wanted things to be normal.

“Done!” Lafontaine shouted causing Laura to groan at the headache that was already starting to form from all the alcohol she’d drunk.

“It’s pretty,” Laura slurred, looking over at the very intricate work of art that was currently taking up half her living room floor, “how’d you remember to do that?”

“I’ve got a phota- photogen- pho- ugh whatever, I remember everything I see.”

“You are amazing, so is that it? Do we just wait or?”

“There’s one more thing and the spell, of course.”

“Of course,” Laura said watching Lafontaine stumble their way into the kitchen only to come out a few minutes later with a knife in hand.

There was a brief second where Laura thought she should be worried about what was going to happen but then she thought Lafontaine was just going to use it to open a box or something.

Probably.

Lafontaine stopped on the edge of the circle and started speaking in a language that seemed to flow off their tongue but when they looked down at the circle they frowned.

“Something wrong?”

“It should be all glowy glowy. Like bright… Oh, Laur I’m sorry, I forgot something. I ruined your birthday present. I am so sorry,” they started sniffling and Laura rushed over and hugged them before the sniffles turned into sobs. A drunk Lafontaine was an emotional Lafontaine apparently.

“Hey, hey it’s okay. Who needs a demon summoned on their birthday anyway? I think we’ve had entirely too much to drink. What did you forget though?” she tried to lead her friend away from the circle but they were both too uncoordinated to get very far away before Laf spoke up again.

“I forgot I don’t have magic. I can remember the spells but I can’t do them. It’s always been that way… Hey!”

The sudden shout caused Laura to jump, nearly causing her to fall over, “what? What is it? Did you remember something?”

“Yeah. You can do it. I bet you have some power. Let’s try. Just repeat after me.”

Laura really did try her best to repeat what Lafontaine said but it took her a good thirty minutes for her to really be able to pronounce the words right, it didn’t help that they were both just about ready to fall asleep where they had sat next to the circle.

“Okay, you are ready now. Stand next to the circle and put your hand over it and repeat what I just taught you.”

Laura nodded and stood up next to the circle, waiting until Lafontaine was a few steps away before sticking her hand out and saying the chant she’d been learning.

Before she even finished it, the circle started glowing in front of her and she suddenly started to feel less drunk, her instincts yelling at her that this was a really, really stupid and bad idea but before she could move her hand away, Lafontaine moved closer and quickly swiped her hand with the knife from earlier.

Laura jerked her hand back, cradling it against her chest and glaring at her friend but the damage was already done.

As soon as her blood hit the circle, there was a brilliant flash of light, so bright that Laura had to close her eyes and look away. She felt a tug on her hand that was bleeding but she assumed it was just Lafontaine so she allowed her hand to be pulled away.

Something wet was touching her hand but she was still seeing spots from that light when she tried to open her eyes so she couldn’t see what it was happening.

After a few seconds, her vision finally cleared and she decided that she would have rather not known.

Kneeling on the ground before her, in the middle of the circle was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen.

Who had small horns on top of her head, glowing red eyes, and fangs sticking out of the mouth that was currently licking the blood off her hand.

_What the hell had they done?_


	2. Chapter 2

Everything was quiet for a few minutes as the two drunk girls tried to wrap their heads around the fact that there was now someone else in the room with them, who seemed content to continue licking the blood off of Laura’s hand until the cut healed over and stopped leaking.

Lafontaine was the first to snap out of their daze, throwing a fist into the air and shouting, “yes! It worked! We summoned a demon!”

Laura’s eyes cut to Lafontaine’s and they both turned slowly to look at the demon, realising that they had in fact summoned a demon.

“Oh my god, we summoned a demon. Perry is going to kill us!” Lafontaine started gesturing wildly but the movement quickly made them sick so they had to rush to the bathroom, leaving Laura alone with her ‘birthday present’.

Who still had a hold of her hand.

Laura jerked her hand away and flung herself backwards to put as much distance between her and the ‘demon’ as she could while still keeping an eye on it, “look I’m sorry, we were really drunk and really didn’t mean to summon you so if you could just please go back where ever you came from that would be amazing.”

The demon stood up from where she had been kneeling in the circle and looked at Laura, a confused expression settling on her face, “eilen amo ka?”

“Uh, what?” Laura knew she was still pretty drunk but there was no way that was english that just came out of the demon’s mouth.

“Eilen amo ka,” she tried again, taking a step towards Laura and sniffing at her before letting out a loud laugh, “Iche les kekan? Mi tor liean kish.”

“I don’t understand, please just go. I am entirely too drunk for this, please,” Laura tried but the demon just shook her head with a small smile that turned into a smirk as she looked at Laura.

Lafontaine came back into the room, looked between the demon and Laura and then walked over to the couch and curled up on it, “sorry, Laur, I’m out. Let’s just deal with this in the morning, okay? ‘kay.”

“Laf! You can’t just go to sleep! What about the-” Laura moved to shake her friend but at the same time the demon moved forward and a combination of fear and all the alcohol in her system caused Laura’s body to finally give up and pass out where she was standing.

The girl started collapsing towards the demon but she wasn’t going to have any of that and instead pushed Laura towards the couch, not caring that she landed weirdly on the couch.

The demon took a step back and looked at the humans on the couch and then back at her circle. She didn’t know what the tiny one had been yelling about exactly but she got the gist of it so while she could just hop back into her circle and go home, it wasn’t everyday someone could summon her, especially if they weren’t even a trained witch.

This was more excitement than she had had in a long time, she wasn’t going to mess up this chance so she quickly destroyed the circle with her foot and started wandering around the place she assumed belonged to the tiny one since her scent was everywhere. The human world had always fascinated her but it had been a while since she had been brought back here. Things had clearly progressed in the last century, she didn’t know half of what the things in this house were.

She looked over at the couch at the humans sprawled out there and shrugged, she would have plenty of time to figure things out while they slept. If only she could read and understand the language everything seemed to be written in.

Normally when she was summoned by a witch or other magical creature she was connected to them and could immediately understand them even if she had never heard the language before. She could only understand her summoner but it never took her long to figure the language out on her own.

But seeing as this little human wasn’t a trained witch, that connection wasn’t there. She was in the dark on this though she thought that it maybe some odd form of English. Until now, she hadn’t been summoned into an English speaking country but she’d heard bits of it before and while what the little human had shouted at her earlier sounded like it, it was very, very different from the proper words she had heard before.

She would figure it out some way though, she always did.

First things first though, she was craving human food and there was a very sweet smell coming from the other room that she knew she just had to check out.

* * *

 

When Laura woke up, she was immediately taken back by the awful pounding in her head. But not even the strong pounding kept the memories from last night from coming back to her immediately.

“Oh my god,” she jumped up, ignoring the groan that came from her friend as she accidently elbowed them.

The living room was still in a mess but the circle had been destroyed. No demon in sight. Had it all just been a crazy vodka induced dream? Hopefully.

“Ugh, god L, do us all a favor and never have a birthday again. I don’t know if I can handle another drinking adventure like that. My head is killing me.”

“Uh yeah, that would probably be a good idea,” Laura looked from the destroyed circle over to Lafontaine who was holding their head, “say, you don’t happen to remember summoning a demon or anything, do you?”

Lafontaine gave her a weird look so she tried to backtrack, “right, sorry. It was silly. Must have just been a weird dream I had-”

Laura was cut off as Lafontaine’s eyes widened, “oh no, did that actually happen? I do remember that happening… I think? Or not? Ugh, I don’t know. If we really did, then where is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid to find out but we can’t just leave it loose. Come with me?” Laura stood up on shaky legs and offered a hand to Lafontaine who groaned as they got up.

“I’m not going on a demon hunt until we both get some painkillers in us.”

“How about you go to the kitchen get some water and I’ll go get some medicine. It’s in my bathroom cabinet.”

Lafontaine nodded and headed off into the kitchen while Laura headed down the hall to the bathroom. The bathroom was all the way down the hall, directly across from her bedroom but as she stepped into the hallway she heard a crunch under her feet.

It was a cookie? Or the remains of one anyway after she had stepped on it. She didn’t remember cookies being part of their drunk night but who knows what else they got up to so she didn’t think on it too much until she stepped on another one and noticed there was a trail of cookies and cookie crumbs leading into her bedroom.

So of course, she had to check it out.

The trail led directly into her bedroom and over to the far wall where her bed was.

Her bed which was currently occupied by the demon from last night who was surrounded by what looked like the remains of her cookie stash.

Laura quickly turned around and headed back into the living room where a confused Lafontaine was standing with two water bottles, “did you find the medicine?”

“Uh, no. I found the demon though. She’s asleep in my bed.”

“First of all, that’s bad, that means we really screwed up. Second of all, don’t call it a she, we don’t even know if demons have gender roles or not.”

“She-,” Lafontaine gave her a look, “it didn’t seem to understand me when I tried to tell it to leave last night so I don’t think it’s going to be too bothered if I refer to it as the wrong gender.”

“Still, it’s important.”

“I know, I know. Let’s just go find Perry, okay? Maybe she can help us fix this? Do you want to go tell her?”

Lafontaine visibly paled, “uh, it might be best if you go tell her. She might take it better if it comes from you. If I tell her she will probably just lecture and yell at me for an hour while you are over here getting eaten or killed by the demon.”

“Okay, I’ll go. Are you going to stay here to keep an eye on it? There is bear spray in the kitchen, arm yourself. Hopefully, I will be right back with Perry.”

* * *

 

What happened after Perry came over to take a look at the mess they had gotten themselves into was probably a weirder experience for Laura than the whole summoning a demon thing itself.

For as long as Laura had known her, Perry was all about being normal. She didn’t like anything out of the ordinary so when Perry marched right into the bedroom and took over, Laura almost couldn’t believe it.

Perry stood by the bed and cleared her throat a few times, trying to wake up the demon but she just turned over and buried her head into Laura’s yellow pillow. Eventually, the demon had enough of Perry’s polite attention getting methods and jumped up, snarling at Perry who didn’t even flinch.

After a second of glaring, the demon calmed down and said something to Perry in that weird language from earlier and Perry just smiled and held out her hand which the demon took. The second their hands touched, a small flash happened and they let go.

“Hi, I am sorry, my friends here got a little carried away last night and it looks like they summoned you on accident. Will you tell us your name?” Perry asked the demon and Laura was going to tell her that the demon didn’t seem to speak english but she decided to go ahead and let Perry handle this, she seemed to know what she was doing.

“Carmilla.”

Perry nodded at the demon and then asked a few more general questions before turning back to a very confused Laura and Lafontaine, “Her name is Carmilla, and yes, Lafontaine, I asked. She does go by these pronouns. Also she doesn’t want to go home.”

“You speak whatever weird language that is?” Laura spoke up, eyeing the demon who had decided to relax back on the bed for now.

“I’ve just connected to her so we can understand each other despite the language barrier.”

“You connected with a demon? That doesn’t sound safe, Perr,” Lafontaine said and Perry just gave them a look.

“Well,it wasn’t safe for you to summon a demon in the first place! What were you thinking!?” Perry’s outburst had gotten the attention of everyone in the room, even the demon lying on the bed.

“I just thought it would be cool to summon a demon for Laura’s birthday. A birthday present, you know? In my defense, I was like majorly drunk.”

“Not drunk enough to not remember the spell though, apparently,” Perry grumbled before turning to Laura, “okay so, we have just a little bit of a problem,”

Laura looked at the demon on her bed with a raised eyebrow, “a little problem?”

“You see, a demon can go back one of two ways. They can go willingly or the summoner can send them back whenever they please. Carmilla here doesn’t seem willing to go back so our only option is to send her back forcibly but because you two… trouble makers summoned her in such a weird way, while I can connect to her like a summoner should be able to, the summoner is still technically you, Laura.”

“So you are saying I just have to send her back? Just tell me how and I’ll do it,” the tiny girl was eager to get this going so she could get back to her normal life and try to process the fact that demons exist and Perry was apparently a witch for real.

“It’s not that simple,” Perry sighed, “summoning is pretty easy, it wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t wanted to come but sending someone back who doesn’t want to go is a whole other ordeal. You would actually have to be a trained witch.”

“But I’m not even a witch, is she going to be stuck here forever?” Laura was starting to panic just thinking about it. How was she going to explain to anyone who came over that she suddenly had a new roommate who has horns and eats all her food? What if she didn’t even want to stay there? What if she went out and started killing people, wasn’t that what demons do? Oh god what had they done?

“I don’t think so, you have some power, obviously, otherwise this wouldn’t have worked in the first place. I can train you, but don’t think I will like it! I wanted to give up this part of my life and be normal but I can’t do that now, can I? Thanks to you two,” Perry was obviously working herself up so Lafontaine went to try and comfort her but Perry was too irritated and didn’t want her friend around her right now.

“I’m sorry, Perry, I didn’t even know. Tell me what I have to do, whatever it is, I will do it. How long do you think training will take? When do you think I’ll be able to send her back?” Laura was imagining a few days, maybe even a week or two at most. After all, it seemed Perry did this when she was much younger so it shouldn’t take that long right?

“We will start tomorrow, I can’t do this today, I’m sorry. I just can’t. If you pick up on it quickly, it will only take about a year or so.”

Perry had already pushed past Lafontaine and was heading to the door when Laura finally realized what she said, “a year!?”

“I think it’s because Carmilla is pretty strong for a demon, even I can tell that. I’m sorry, Laur, I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. Let’s never get that drunk again, okay? I need to go talk to Perry and try to make this right, she’s worked so hard to push that part of her life away and I just brought it all back. Will you be okay with your new roommate?”

Both Laura and Lafontaine looked over to the demon who was now sitting up on the bed again, watching them closely, “I guess so, what if she tries to kill me or like eat me or something though?”

“Pretty sure she can’t since you are her summoner. Demon laws and all that. I’ll come back and check on you two later, okay?”

Carmilla and Laura both watched Lafontaine leave the apartment and then turned to look at each other.

“Uh, so um, my name is Laura.”

The demon just tilted her head to the side, clearly having no idea what Laura was talking about so Laura started pointing to Carmilla and saying “Carmilla” and then pointing to herself and saying “Laura”. It didn’t take long before Carmilla seemed to understand and pointed to the little human and saying her name.

“That’s right! Cool, okay. Maybe this won’t be as hard as I thought.”

* * *

It was a few hours before Lafontaine headed back over to Laura’s place. They hadn’t heard any screaming coming from there so they were pretty sure things were okay so they spent a little more time than they meant to with Perry. Most of the time was spent in silence as Perry ignored her friend but eventually she calmed down enough to accept the hundreds of apologies that Lafontaine was offering her. Things would be a little tense for them for a while but at least they were on the right track.

Lafontaine was deep in thought as they walked over to Laura’s door and pushed it open- they hadn’t thought to lock it on the way out earlier- so when they took in the chaos that was the living room, they thought maybe they had walked into the wrong apartment on accident.

Clothes were thrown everywhere as well as empty food packages and everything was just generally in a mess. What in the world had happened while they were gone?

It didn’t take long to find out as Carmilla rushed into the living room, pulling on a flannel shirt with Laura following behind her trying to pull it off, “you can’t keep stealing my stuff! I don’t mind you borrowing but you are making a mess, you keep trying on things and then throwing them aside. What, are they not dark and scary enough for you? Sorry, but I like a little bit of color in my wardrobe!”

The demon shrugged her shoulders, the action enough to get Laura to let go before she walked into the kitchen, leaving Laura to talk to Lafontaine.

“So, uh, things look to be going good here.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? She’s a monster! She’s going through all my stuff and making a mess and she won’t listen to me and yes, I know, she can’t understand me but you’d think sheer anger and the word ‘no’ would come across in any language,” Laura huffed before taking a spot on the couch.

“You realise you are getting mad at a probably centuries old bad ass demon, right? She can’t kill you but she could probably find some inventive ways to torture you.”

Laura paled and looked warily over at the doorway to the kitchen, even though she couldn’t see the demon, “isn’t there some way to control her? You know, make sure she doesn't torture me and destroy my apartment in the process?”

“Oh I’m sure there are, you just have to be a witch to use them.”

“Ugh, what am I going to do, Laf? What if she tries to get me in my sleep or something? What if she possesses me? That’s something demons do, right?”

“Laura, chill, just don’t make her mad, okay? How hard can it be? It shouldn’t take you too long to learn some basic control over her so just be nice for a little while. It’s not like she’s done anything that bad yet-” Lafontaine was cut off by the distinct sound of a package being opened and Laura shot off the couch and into the kitchen

“That better not be the last of my cookies or I swear to god I will take you down you- you- you bad person!”

Lafontaine stood there looking towards the kitchen, listening to the commotion going on in there before turning around and heading out the door. They were still way too hungover to get in the middle of a centuries old demon and the tiny ball of rage that their friend turned into if you pushed her buttons just right.

Laura had been talking about wanting some excitement in her life last night but they didn’t think this was quite what she had in mind.

* * *

The worn couch cushions let out a puff of air as Laura flopped herself onto them. She was still hungover and exhausted from trying to keep the demon from tearing up her apartment. After many futile attempts, she’s taking a new approach to things.

In that she’s just going to let Carmilla do what she wants. She’s going to do it anyway so why fight it? Plus, the demon seemed to get a kick out of Laura’s frustration so she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction anymore. It was like not reacting to a school bully.

Carmilla had changed clothes again- for only the hundredth time, Laura was sure- and while she still had the plaid shirt on from earlier, it was now open over a black tank top and a darker pair of jeans that Laura hardly ever wore. Now that Carmilla seemed to decide on an outfit, and now that Laura wasn’t following her around and yelling, she went back to examining things in the house.

She had done a lot of it while Laura was sleeping but most things she couldn’t even begin to figure out and had just gone to sleep after she had found the bedroom.

Laura glanced at the demon out of the corner of her eye then decided to turn on the TV, trying to focus on something else other than the new “roommate” she was suddenly stuck with.

The TV flickered to life on an episode of Castle she’d already seen and she would have changed it, if she hadn’t caught sight of Carmilla jumping when the TV turned on.

Carmilla was still as death for a few minutes, just staring at the TV with a guarded look on her face before finally slowly approaching it. It reminded Laura of the stray cats she used to feed back at home who would eventually cautiously approach the food when she backed away from it.

She finally got close enough to look behind the TV and after circling it- as best as she could since it was up against a wall- she finally stopped in front of it and poked it, nearly jumping out of her skin as Laura yelled at her as the TV wobbled a bit.

Now, of course, her first instinct was to destroy it but she could hear and feel the electricity flowing through and after a little incident with electricity all those years ago when she was in the human world last, she wasn’t keen on messing with it again. Plus, back then it had just been used in street lamps and things but now the houses seemed to just be humming with electricity. It seems it had come a long way since then.

Carmilla wandered off after that, checking out a few more things in the house but soon she got bored and ended up back in the living room. She stood in the doorway looking at the tiny human who had summoned her and took in the sight of her sitting on the couch and watching the strange device from earlier. Was that what it was for?

She moved over and sat on the couch next to Laura, ignoring that the girl visibly shrank away from her and focused on the screen. It only took a few minutes for her to get the gist of it. It was like a smaller version of the movie theaters that were just becoming popular last time she was here. She still had no clue what they were talking about or what was happening but watching these people on the screen was fascinating to her.

They stayed like that for a while, Carmilla focusing intently on the screen while Laura only halfway watched what was on. She was mostly just resting and recovering from her hangover.

Safe wasn’t really a word Laura would use to describe how she felt right now, considering there was a demon sitting next to her on the couch, but she was starting to drift off as she sat there anyway, barely keeping her eyes open and focused on the TV.

“Laura.”

Her whole body jerked at the sound and judging by how sore her neck was, she’d fallen asleep for a while, “wha?”

Carmilla waited until Laura made eye contact and then pointed to the arm of the couch next to Laura where her cell phone was vibrating out of control, signalling that she was getting a call. She apparently hadn’t taken it off vibrate after being out last night.

Laura groaned as she picked up the phone and saw her father’s name on the screen. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him, it was just that she knew she was going to have to lie to him about the events of her birthday party.

Carmilla glanced at the phone in Laura’s hand warily as the shorter girl stood up and walked past her, intending to hide out in the bedroom to talk to her father, and Laura noticed, “relax, it’s just a phone.”

She held the phone out towards Carmilla and repeated what it was again simply before she headed off to the bedroom to finally answer the phone that didn’t seem to stop ringing.

This was going to be a very awkward conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

After Laura finally got off the phone with her father, who was convinced something more had happened on her birthday but she ended up letting it slip that she’d gotten pretty drunk and he thought that was bad enough, she headed back into the living room. Carmilla was still sitting on the couch, eyes glued to the TV but turned to face the human when Laura’s stomach growled.

They’d spent the whole morning arguing- as much as they could when they didn’t speak the same language- about the snacks that Carmilla had already eaten so she hadn’t thought about actually eating food until now but it was well after noon now and lunch was in order.

She was tempted to just order in something but she wasn’t sure if Carmilla could be trusted to hide or at least not kill or harm the delivery person so she ended up setting about making grilled cheese for herself and Carmilla.

She didn’t want to, but judging by the amount of snacks that had been devoured last night and this morning, she knew that Carmilla could eat human food and she had a sneaking suspicion that the demon would just help herself to Laura’s food if she didn’t make her her own plate.

Normally she would have some tomato soup with her grilled cheese sandwich but she didn’t feel comfortable serving Carmilla something that was warm, red, and liquid. She didn’t want her getting any ideas about any other warm red liquids.

Not that she was a vampire- that she knew of- but still, demons usually liked blood, didn’t they?

So, she would not be taking that chance and instead portioned out some potato chips to go with the sandwiches before bringing the plates into the living room.

Carmilla didn’t pay too much attention to the tiny human until she passed in front of the couch and Carmilla got a whiff of the food that Laura was carrying. She assumed she would have to steal some of Laura’s so she was very surprised when Laura handed her a plate.

“Here. It’s grilled cheese,” Carmilla continued to look at her like she was crazy, “look I know you eat human food so eat. See? It’s food.”

Laura took a bite out of her sandwich and finally Carmilla copied her, eagerly eating the sandwich and chips. Laura couldn’t help but smile as she watched the other girl enjoy the food, it was almost like watching a child discover something new.

But then Carmilla took a particularly large bite of her sandwich and Laura caught a glimpse of those very sharp looking fangs and she was suddenly reminded that Carmilla wasn’t a little kid enjoying new things, she was a scary demon enjoying new things.

She made it a point not to watch her eat after that.

* * *

 

Laura was very glad to have a three day weekend off from work for her birthday, she loved writing articles for the magazine she worked for but she didn’t want to think about what would have happened if she had had to go back to work today and leave Carmilla alone in her apartment.

Despite being off, she knew she needed to work on some of the articles that would be due when she got back to work so she eventually pushed the couch back to where it was along with the coffee table when Carmilla had wandered off for a few minutes. It hadn’t taken Carmilla long to come back from the kitchen with a handful of sweet things and sit back down on the couch next to Laura.

She didn’t particularly want to be sitting on the couch next to her demon roommate but she also didn’t want to leave her alone either so she spread her research papers out on the table and tried to focus on her work as much as she could. Things may be weird in her life right now but she knew she’d be in even more trouble if she didn’t get a move on with these articles.

“Laura,” once again the demon’s voice startled Laura out of her thoughts and Laura turned to her.

“What?”

Carmilla pointed at Laura’s phone that was sitting on the coffee table, “phone,” and then pointed at the TV and looked at Laura questioningly.

“Are you wanting to know what it is?”

Carmilla just stared blankly at her before jabbing her finger in the direction of the TV again.

“It’s a TV. TV.”

“T...V?”

“Yup. TV.”

Carmilla nodded, committing the new word to memory and then pointed to the thing they were sitting on.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur for Laura because even though she didn’t get much at all done on her articles, she spent the day telling Carmilla what each object she could find was.

Laura had to admit, the rate that Carmilla seemed to pick things up was amazing. Laura usually only had to say something once or twice and then Carmilla would be able to repeat it back to her later on when she tried to test her on the things she had learned.

They had made it into the kitchen and were going through all the different things in there when Lafontaine and Perry came back over.

Lafontaine didn’t hesitate in taking a seat at the table where Laura was sitting while Carmilla roamed around, “so, you guys seem like you are getting along.”

“Yeah, I guess so. She’s starting to learn some of our language so at least we can communicate, kinda.”

Instead of taking a seat at the table too, Perry moved around the table and came closer, catching Carmilla’s attention before they started talking. Laura tried to pay attention to what was happening, even though she couldn’t understand Carmilla’s side of things but Lafontaine was busy telling her about a new fungus that had just been discovered so she didn’t get to hear much at all.

She did, however, notice Perry getting irritated at Carmilla and Carmilla holding her ground until Perry finally huffed and walked over to the table, “Carmilla wants to thank you for helping her learn things but she wants you to know you are still very annoying for a human and wishes you would stop ranting, especially when she can’t even understand what you are saying. She also wants you to know all the cookies are gone now and that she would like more.”

Carmilla frowned at Perry and Laura got the feeling that what Carmilla had actually said to Perry wasn’t exactly as nice as what Perry had ended up telling her.

“Well you can tell Carmilla that I’ll stop ranting if she stops stealing my clothes and that we would have had plenty of cookies if she hadn’t eaten them all!”

Perry sighed but conveyed the message to Carmilla who shrugged and looked at Laura with a smirk before saying something to Perry that caused the girl to blush and once again Carmilla wasn’t going to let her get away with not telling Laura her message.

“Carmilla says that if you don’t like that she’s wearing your clothes that she would be happy to go around um… naked. As for the cookies she said ‘that’s just the way the world works, cutie’.”

Laura blushed at the immediate mental image that brought to mind. Okay, so maybe the clothes stealing wasn’t that big of a deal. She could deal with that if it meant the demon stayed fully clothed during her stay. The cookies though, that was another matter, “that is not just the way the world works! Demons aren’t supposed to be summoned into homes to eat all the cookies! I didn’t even know demons were a real thing until last night. Ugh!”

Carmilla clearly had a brilliant reply to that but Perry was done being the translator for now, “okay! Well then, it looks like the two of you have got this under control for the most part. I’m sure you two will make it through the night just fine but I’m going home. Let me know if you need anything serious, but I am not playing translator for you two all night. Figure it out yourselves, okay? Good. I’ll see you in the morning for training, Laura.”

“Perry, wait,” Laura said and the curly redhead stopped on her way out the door, turning to look at her.

“What is it?”

“Um, I was thinking of ordering pizza for dinner but I need you to tell Carmilla not to attack or frighten or do anything else to the delivery person first?”

“Oooh pizza, can I stay?” Lafontaine asked but after Carmilla took a seat at the table and started glaring at them, they decided it would be best for them to go ahead and leave with Perry.

Perry took a few minutes to explain the process of pizza delivery to Carmilla who was understandably confused but agreed not to bother anyone who came to the door- only after she understood they were bring food- before she headed back to her room, making sure that the seals she had put on Laura’s apartment were still in place. Ideally, she’d rather not keep Carmilla locked up with Laura but if the worse did happen and Carmilla decided to go on a killing spree, Laura would be the only one who would be safe from that. So she did what she had to do.

At least so far, Carmilla seemed content to just learn about things. She just wondered when that fascination would wear off and if Laura would be ready to control her when it does.

* * *

 

Pizza had gone over really well with Carmilla- after she picked the pepperoni off her pieces- and they settled in for a little bit more TV time before they had to figure out what to do about sleeping arrangements. Laura couldn’t help but snicker as Carmilla watched the TV even more closely, finally starting to recognize some of the words they were saying after Laura had taught her some things. It reminded Laura of when she would babysit small children and would eventually end up sticking them in front of the TV for a few minutes of peace. The fact that it worked on supernatural beings like demons was hilarious to Laura.

Eventually though, Laura couldn’t put it off any longer, she was so sleepy she was going to end up falling asleep right there which wouldn’t be a problem, except Carmilla was taking up half of the already small couch.

She’d originally gone ahead and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to be sleeping on the couch, Carmilla already knew what the bed was and what it was for so she didn’t think she could explain to Carmilla that it was her bed, not the demon’s.

Now though, maybe she wouldn’t have to. Carmilla seemed pretty entranced with the TV so maybe she would rather stay out in the living room for the night? It was worth a shot so Laura got up, put away what she had been working on, and headed into her bedroom to change her clothes. She really, really needed a shower but she didn’t want to catch Carmilla’s attention, plus she was just too tired for it.

So she just changed clothes and after moving all the empty cookie packages from the bed and shaking out all the crumbs Carmilla had left last night, she slid under the covers and promptly fell asleep, praying to whatever or whoever was listening that Carmilla wouldn’t get into too much trouble while she slept.

* * *

 

Carmilla ended up staying on the couch for another hour or so after Laura went to bed, she was utterly fascinated by the TV because not only was it an amazing invention, but it was an easy way for her to listen to the language and start picking parts out that she knew. She was already starting to understand the gist of some things now, even though she wasn’t clear on the details of what was going on, it was certainly more enjoyable to watch. Just recently though, something came on that wasn’t of interest to her. It seemed as if the very annoying and loud guy was trying to sell her something. How that would even work was a mystery to her but she knew she didn’t want to watch it. She reached over to the other end of the couch where Laura had left what she called a “remote” and grabbed it. Laura had shown her she could change channels by pushing certain buttons earlier.

She pushed the button she was told to but never did find anything that held her attention for long.

Besides, she knew it was late and even though she didn’t need as much sleep as humans, she enjoyed her fair share of it.

The demon got up from her spot on the couch and stretched, grabbing the last snack cake out of the package next to her and eating it before she wandered down the hallway to where the comfy bed she’d spent the last night in was.

Seeing in the dark wasn’t a problem for her so she quickly noticed that the tiny human who had summoned her was already curled up in the bed. In a few quick seconds, Carmilla had stripped down to nothing and climbed into the bed next to the girl without giving it another thought.

Demons rarely wore anything to bed and from what she’d seen on the TV so far, humans didn’t tend to either in this era.

She took note that Laura seemed to be wearing some clothes even though they were different from what she was wearing earlier but she didn’t bother thinking about it too much, she already got the feeling that Laura did whatever she wanted, even if it wasn’t normal.

It wasn’t long before the gentle sound of Laura breathing next to her lulled her to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Laura was having a rather rough morning.

First, she woke up being cuddled by a very dangerous and very naked demon in her own bed.

Next she found out that somehow all the cereal was gone and she’d have to make a grocery run soon. She didn’t even know when Carmilla had time to finish off the last of the cereal but it had happened.

Then her demon roommate woke up and after going through the kitchen herself and not finding much of anything good was left, Carmilla decided they should have pizza for breakfast. At least, that’s what Laura assumed when Carmilla kept saying “pizza” over and over again and trying to shove her phone at her.

And then last but not least, Perry and Lafontaine came over and they started Laura’s first witch training session.

It was going well.

If by ‘well’ you meant that Lafontaine was now on fire extinguisher duty after the couch had caught on fire for the third time. Apparently, Laura had an affinity for fire.

Unlocking Laura’s power wasn’t hard at all, Perry was actually surprised Laura hadn’t accidentally unlocked it herself in the past because it was just barely contained, she actually had quite a bit of power.

What she didn’t have however, was a single shred of control over it. She’d think she’d have it down, that she was calm enough for Perry to release a temporary seal she’d put on Laura, so she could let out the power a little at a time, but then Carmilla would do something to irritate Laura and she’d lose it.

Perry’s estimate of a year was looking very iffy at this point.

After over an hour of trying and failing at learning control, everyone was getting a bit restless. Laura was frustrated and hungry after not getting a chance to eat breakfast yet and Perry was frustrated at the girl’s lack of control and the fact she was having to do this in the first place.

Lafontaine was on high alert, ready to extinguish any magical fires before they got out of control while Carmilla watched from the sidelines with an amused smirk on her face. She didn’t have to have human food but now that she was eating it regularly again, her body craved it and she knew Laura had to be hungry too so she spoke up, telling Perry they should call for pizza again and take a break.

Perry agreed to take a break but explained to Carmilla that pizza wasn’t really a breakfast food and Carmilla just shrugged, she didn’t really understand the concept of eating certain things at certain times but maybe that meant they could have pizza later on.

“So, a break, huh? Why don’t I go down to that diner down the street, see if they are still serving breakfast and bring some back for us, yeah?” Lafontaine said and at Perry’s agreement, they headed out the door to find some food.

“Ugh, this is harder than I thought,” Laura said as she flopped down on the couch, not even caring that the demon was on the couch already or that the couch was still slightly damp from the many times Lafontaine had to put out fires on it.

“I certainly hope you didn’t think this was going to be easy, Laura. Granted, your case is a little different than usual. Someone with as much power as you should have been practicing from a very early age.”

Laura couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped her at the thought of her super protective father finding out she had powers as a child, it certainly wouldn’t have gone over well.

Speaking of childhood powers, Laura really wanted to ask about Perry’s childhood and how she trained and all that but Lafontaine had made a point of coming over before Perry did to warn her not to say or ask anything about it. They had mentioned something about a demon in the past and things going wrong but then they refused to say anything more, saying that when or if Perry decided to tell her, then she would tell her herself. It wasn’t their story to tell.

So Laura resolved to keep her mouth shut even though it was hard.

They all sat in silence for a while, the only sound coming from the TV that Carmilla was focused on again, until Lafontaine made it back with many cartons of food for them.

Everyone was hungrier than they thought so it didn’t take long for everyone to finish their food and then they were back to work. Now that Laura had a full stomach she was ready to try this again.

She was going to do better this time.

She was not going to set the couch on fire again. The poor thing couldn’t take much more abuse.

* * *

 

Round two of witch training consisted of more exercises so that Laura could gain control over her powers, that was the first step.

This round went a little better than the last except for Carmilla who made it a point to try to distract and irritate Laura throughout the whole thing. Her favorite thing to do, it seemed, was repeatedly call Laura’s name until the human paid attention to her then Carmilla would pretend like she hadn’t said anything and go back to watching TV.

The first few times, Laura stayed calm but as she got more and more into the training and was starting to tire out, she couldn’t stay as calm.

Lafontaine was on fire duty again, putting out the random little fires that popped up every time Laura would get mad enough at Carmilla to lose her cool.

Perry kept assuring her she was getting better but it sure didn’t feel like it at all, she didn’t feel like she had any control at all.

But then Carmilla took it a little too far, chucking the remote at Laura when she wouldn’t give in and pay attention to her and Laura lost it.

Laura turned to Carmilla and really gave the demon her attention and the next thing she knew, flames were erupting around Carmilla.

Before the demon could even react to the flames licking at her skin, Lafontaine sprung into action, putting out the flames and covering Carmilla in cold white foam. The cold stung more than the flames had and Carmilla was not happy.

Everything was still, the only sounds coming from the TV that no one was paying attention to now and the soft plops of the foam dripping off of Carmilla.

Then the growling started and Carmilla turned her gaze to Lafontaine, body shifting and crouching down before springing up with amazing speed and taking a swipe at Lafontaine with deadly claws that Laura was pretty sure weren’t there before. Only the fact that Lafontaine held up the fire extinguisher in front of themselves kept them from serious damage.

“Stop it!” Laura yelled, squeezing her way in between the demon and her friend but while the demon didn’t go after Laura, she was still focused on destroying what she saw as a threat.

Namely, Lafontaine.

“Carmilla! Stop! They were just trying to help. They didn’t mean to do it. Calm down,” Perry tried reasoning with Carmilla but she just kept pushing forward, ignoring that Laura was in front of her trying to get her to stop and just ended up getting dragged along with the determined demon.

Carmilla lunged forward, taking another swipe at Lafontaine and ended up knocking Laura over in the process. Now that nothing was standing between them and the demon, Lafontaine decided it was time they should get out of there.

“Uh, Perr, I think I’ll just go ahead and head back to my place for now…”

Two quick backward steps and they were officially out the door, flinching as Carmilla rushed after them and literally crashed into the barrier Perry had set up around the apartment.

Unfortunately it just made her more angry.

“Well, Laura, I think that is probably good for today. Let’s try again tomorrow, shall we?” Perry moved forward and carefully slid past the demon who was now pounding against the barrier.

“Wait! You can’t leave me here with her!”

Perry turned back to look at Laura once she was past the barrier, shouting over the sound of Carmilla smashing her fists into the barrier still, “you can come and go as you please and you are always welcome to stay with me or Lafontaine but do you really want to leave a demon loose in your apartment? She seems to have already made a big enough mess even with you there.”

Carmilla gave one last snarl at Lafontaine and then went back into the living room, pacing frantically back and forth. It reminded Laura of a caged tiger and she almost, almost felt sorry for her. Carmilla must not have realized she was trapped in the apartment until then.

“Yeah, okay. You are right. So tomorrow then?” Laura waited until Perry nodded then she carefully shut the door and turned back her roommate.

Who was currently taking her frustrations out on the couch.

“Oh my god! Stop it! Carmilla!”

Shreds of the couch were just flying everywhere as Carmilla laid into it, claws slicing easily through the fabric and stuffing. Even the wooden and metal parts were no match for her as they were quickly broken or pulled apart.

“Stop!” Laura tried hard to get the demon to stop but she wasn’t having any of it. Laura even tried to put herself between what was left of the couch and Carmilla but the demon just pushed her aside and continued on.

It was just the couch but all Laura could picture was that it was Lafontaine if Carmilla had managed to get ahold of them. She hadn’t exactly been comfortable with the demon but now she was really being reminded that there was something not human in her house and it terrified her.

“Please, just stop,” she felt useless and weak just then when Carmilla wouldn’t listen to her and she couldn’t do anything to stop her. It was just a couch, but the demon just wouldn’t stop and when the couch was done, what was going to be next? The rest of her apartment? Any other human who came into her apartment?

Shreds of the couch finally stopped flying and Laura thought that maybe Carmilla was done but then the demon turned to glare at Laura and her eyes were glowing red. She didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t think it was anything good so Laura did the only thing she could think to do.

She abandoned ship.


	5. Chapter 5

“Laura, I don’t mind having you over here, but it’s been almost a week now, don’t you think you should at least go check on her? See how badly your apartment has been damaged?”

Laura sighed, relaxing further into Perry’s couch, the same couch she had been spending the last week on, “do I have to? I mean, can’t I just pretend that my apartment isn’t in shreds for a little while longer? Maybe until I can really control her?”

“Well, you’ve got enough control now you should at least be able to make her stop if she’s doing something you don’t want. You just have to remain calm, or at the very least, channel that anger into your power.”

“I don’t know…”

Training had actually been going pretty well without Carmilla’s “help” and Laura had finally gotten her powers mostly under control. They had even started learning some of the fun things like levitation and simple spells but she was still a long way off from being strong enough to send Carmilla back.

She knew she couldn’t live at Perry’s forever though, and it was that thought that finally got her off the couch and heading over to her own apartment. Lafontaine and Perry offered to go with her, but she knew she should do this on her own. Who knows what she was going to find over there and what kind of mood Carmilla would be in.

Laura wasn’t quite sure what she expected when she pushed open the door to her apartment- flames and chaos befitting a demon’s lair maybe- but everything looked about the same other than the couch shreds seemed to have been pushed all into a pile.

A pile that Carmilla was currently nestled down in, napping apparently.

Laura thought she was being quiet as she slipped into her apartment and shut the door but not quiet enough as Carmilla’s head immediately popped up and looked at her.

Carmilla had changed clothes since Laura left but it was obvious she’d never washed the fire extinguisher foam out of her hair as it was sticking together in clumps all over the place.

How to work a shower was something Carmilla hadn’t figured out how to do yet, apparently, and she was long overdue for one.

“Laura,” she was hesitant to say that Carmilla looked happy to see her but maybe relieved was a better fitting word? Had she thought she was never going to come back? That she was going to be stuck in there for the rest of her life, however long that maybe? Perry had mentioned before- when she had talked about her hopes that Carmilla would just leave on her own- that even if Carmilla chose to leave, she would need her summoner or another witch to make the circle and start the spell. It made Laura feel just a little guilty, even though she knew she wasn’t really wrong to leave while Carmilla was attacking things.

She was still wary of the demon but she couldn’t just leave her like that.

“Hey, you look like you could use a shower, come on,” Laura knew Carmilla wouldn’t know what she was saying so she gestured for Carmilla to follow her down the hall to the bathroom. At first, Carmilla didn’t follow but after Laura had waited a few minutes, the demon’s curiosity got the better of her and she made her way into the small room.

The shower in this apartment was probably the loudest Laura had ever heard so she thought it would be best to try and show Carmilla what she was going to do by using the sink first. She made sure to keep her eyes on the demon as she reached over and gently turned on the sink, letting the water start dripping out and then once she felt like Carmilla wasn’t going to freak out, she turned it on some more and put her hand under it.

Suddenly it clicked for Carmilla what those little knobs did, she had wondered about them in the kitchen but didn’t feel up for trying them out to see what happened. It was definitely a more efficient version of what she’d seen last time she was in this world but she understood it and went to stick her hand under it as well. Maybe she could finally do something about her hair now that she had access to water.

Carmilla was still looking at the sink but as Laura moved over to the tub, her eyes followed her and watched as Laura turned some more knobs there. Suddenly the loud sound of pipes rattling filled the room and Carmilla worked hard to keep herself from jumping at the sound. Laura pulled another knob and suddenly the water was coming from up above and Carmilla couldn’t help but smile a little. This was certainly an improvement over the bathing methods used in the past.

Without a thought, she stripped out of the clothes she had on, ignoring Laura who squeaked and rushed out of the way so that Carmilla could step into the tub and under the warm water.

Laura left the demon on her own for a while, she needed to get a clean towel for her anyway, then went around the apartment inspecting it for damage. Everything else seemed to be intact, most things seemed to be moved just slightly from where Carmilla had no doubt picked them up or moved them to inspect them but nothing seemed to be wrong other than the shredded couch and the fact that there didn’t seem to be anything edible left in the kitchen at all. Every last can and jar has been opened and the fridge was barren.

She was definitely going to have to go grocery shopping soon.

Laura made her way back to the bathroom and hesitated outside the door. She felt like she needed to check on her but she didn’t want to invade her privacy. Then again, Carmilla didn’t particularly seem to care about being naked around her so maybe it didn’t matter? For all she knew, demons ran around naked all the time.

The door swung open gently and Laura walked in with a clean towel in her hand. She was just going to leave it for her and hope she knew what it was for but then she noticed that Carmilla seemed to be struggling with the amazing amount of knots that had formed in her hair.

Laura watched for a few seconds before making up her mind, Carmilla was just making the knots worse and Laura just couldn’t stand around and watch such gorgeous hair be abused anymore so she headed over to her bedroom and dug around in her closet until she found a swimsuit to wear.

She quickly stripped down and pulled the swimsuit on, briefly wondering if maybe Perry’s training had done something to her mind because surely she was not about to shower with a demon so that she could help her with her hair, was she?

Apparently, she was. Laura took a deep breath to calm down her nerves and then pulled the curtain aside so she could step into the tub behind Carmilla. She had expected more of a reaction from the demon but Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at her and raked her eyes up and down her body for a minute before turning back around and working on her hair again, getting more irritated at it by the minute. Laura determinedly kept her eyes focused on Carmilla’s hair and didn’t let them drift to any other part of her body.

Laura had originally thought that she would use her own hair to show Carmilla the wonders of shampoo and conditioner but she couldn’t get to the water enough to wet her hair for that so she had to try a different approach. She squirted some shampoo onto her hands and rubbed them together to get some bubbles going then reached out to touch Carmilla’s hair.

Before she could even make contact with the dark strands, a strong hand was grabbing her by the wrist and stopping her. Carmilla did not look happy but Laura just tried to smile at her, wiggling her fingers so that Carmilla’s attention would be drawn to them. The demon sniffed her fingers quickly then seemed to deem the shampoo acceptable and let her hand go. Slowly, Laura lifted her hands back up to Carmilla’s hair and started working the shampoo in.

The whole time her hands were on her, Carmilla was tense but she didn’t object to the help.

A few minutes later, Laura had worked the shampoo in enough that she was happy, she could already feel some of the clumps loosening up and knew the rest would come out with a heavy dose of conditioner and some patience. She withdrew her hands from Carmilla’s hair and very, very gently pushed the demon under the stream of water so that she could wash it out.

Carmilla went to run her hands through her hair after the shampoo was gone but Laura stopped her and went to work on her hair again, this time thoroughly coating it in conditioner. After a little while, Laura carefully- so as not to brush up against any part of Carmilla’s very wet and naked body- reached around her to grab a wide tooth comb she kept in the shower specifically for those particularly bad bed head days when her own hair got tangled and got to work untangling the strands.

She didn’t know how long it took to get her tangle free but they still had warm water going so it couldn’t have been too long. Finally the conditioner was rinsed out and Carmilla couldn’t seem to keep her hands out of her now smooth again hair.

Laura thought she might have even gotten a grateful look from the demon when she was done but she wasn’t going to get her hopes up. She shut the water off and climbed out, glad that she’d gotten a new towel for Carmilla so that she could wrap her normal towel around her body to avoid dripping all over the floor.

Which didn’t matter really seeing as Carmilla had no problem stepping out of the shower and wandering off to the bedroom for new clothes, soaking the floor the entire way there.

With a sigh, Laura grabbed the towel and followed after the demon, shoving it insistently into her hands before going back and grabbing another towel to mop up the floor with.

By the time the floor was dry again, Carmilla had already gotten dressed in some of the darker clothing Laura owned and was sitting on Laura’s bed patting her hair gently with the towel.

Finding something that Carmilla hadn’t tried on and/or left strewn all over the floor was beginning to be a problem for Laura but she finally found something suitable to change in to. Normally, she would change in her bedroom but seeing as Carmilla didn’t seem to want to move, she grabbed the clothes and took them back into the bathroom to change.

She was definitely going to have to do laundry soon too.

When she came back out of the bathroom, Carmilla was settled back into her nest of scraps that used to be the couch and knocking was coming from the door that Carmilla was apparently pretending not to hear.

“Laura? Are you okay in there?” Lafontaine yelled through the door..

Laura went to open the door and as soon as Lafontaine stepped inside, she could feel the air shift and knew Carmilla was back on the offensive.

Too quickly for her eyes to see, Carmilla was in front of her, just about to attack Lafontaine again when she finally got her mouth working again, “stop!”

It didn’t sound any different than when she had yelled it a week ago but this time she could feel the power behind it and this time Carmilla did stop, even though she was clearly not happy about it. It was as if she was frozen for a few seconds before she was released and she literally sulked back to her “nest”.

“Well, looks like that works at least. Perry will be happy. So I guess you two are doing okay then?”

Laura looked over her shoulder at the sulking demon, “yeah, I think we will be okay now. Thanks for checking on me.”

“Anytime. Let me know if you need anything and Perry said to tell you to just come over at the normal time to train again.”

“Sure thing, see you later.”

Lafontaine waved and headed back to either their apartment or to Perry’s apartment, Laura didn’t know which, so she shut the door before picking up the phone and dialing the pizza place.

Maybe that would keep Carmilla from sulking.

* * *

 

Once the pizza arrived, Carmilla was in a happier mood and Laura found herself sprawled out on the nest of shreds with the demon. With the couch gone, there wasn’t really any other place to sit in the living room and the nest was rather comfy, Carmilla had apparently taken the time to pick out the hard wood and metal pieces, leaving just the fluff and fabric behind. The fluff was annoying as it flew up and stuck to everything so Laura had drug a blanket out of the closet and spread it over the nest before they really settled in.

Laura wasn’t really focused too much on the TV even though she had picked one of her favorite movies to watch, she was mostly just drifting in and out. Perry’s couch wasn’t really the best for getting a good night's sleep so she was understandably startled when Carmilla spoke up.

“Laura, thank you.”

“Your... uh, you’re welcome?” Laura knew exactly what Carmilla was talking about, she hadn’t stopped combing her fingers through her hair since they settled down on the nest but that wasn’t something she had taught her to say.

“How did you learn that?”

Carmilla just pointed at the TV and shrugged, “you not with me. Bored.”

It was broken and stilted but Laura couldn't keep the smile off her face, they could communicate!

Sort of. It was a start though and Laura was sure that once they could talk to each other, things would get better.

Hopefully.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been two weeks since Laura came back after the couch shredding incident and the couch was still in shreds on the floor. Laura had thought about replacing it but decided against it until she was sure Carmilla wasn’t going to do the same to a new couch if she happened to get mad again. She could command Carmilla to stop now but she could always sneak into the living room and do it when she was asleep or something.

So far though, things were going… decently between them. Carmilla had really picked up on the language once Laura started working with her again so at least now they could talk even if Carmilla was still extremely stubborn about things.

Laura had gone back to work during the week she stayed with Perry and then continued to go to work even after she went back to living in her own apartment again. She hadn’t really wanted to leave Carmilla alone but she didn’t have much of a choice. If she didn’t work, they weren’t going to be able to afford the massive amount of food they were going through each week.

She used to just get by with going to the store maybe every two weeks or more but now it was a weekly thing and even that was stretching it. It was hard carrying all the grocery bags up to her apartment each week- she’d almost talked to Perry about briefly extending the barrier so that Carmilla could come down and help her carry them then thought better of it- but it kept the demon happy and plus, she had an excuse to indulge in more cookies than normal.

Now that Laura could get out of the house a little bit, she was finding it wasn’t quite so bad living with Carmilla. Of course she constantly irritated her and was the messiest house guest she’d ever had but it was kind of nice not being alone. She’d even taken the time to check out a couple thrift stores, picking Carmilla out some clothing of her own to wear that was more of her style. It didn’t keep the demon from digging through Laura’s clothes and making a mess of them though. It just meant there were more clothes scattered all over their bedroom but she liked to think that the demon appreciated the gesture.

Yes, their bedroom. They were still sharing a bed even though Laura had offered many times to get the demon her own bed but Carmilla refused. Laura had even brought in an air bed and put it in the corner to sleep on herself after giving up getting her bed back but by the time she woke up in the morning, Carmilla was wrapped around her and the mattress was deflated thanks to a few puncture marks that happened to be the same size as Carmilla’s nails.

After that, Laura had given up and resigned herself to the fact she was going to be sharing a bed with a demon.

A very cuddly demon who still refused to wear pajamas or any other form of clothing to bed.

Carmilla had no trouble napping fully clothed on the nest in the living room during the day but she just absolutely refused to wear anything at night.

That’s where she was now, curled up in the nest like a cat while Laura sat next to her, flipping through TV channels while she waited for Lafontaine and Perry to come over for more training.

They’d been training at Perry’s for a while now, it was easier without Carmilla there to distract her, but after she’d accidently knocked over and nearly killed one of Perry’s precious plants, they had decided to go ahead and start training back in Laura’s apartment. Perry claimed that having to deal with Carmilla while they trained would help her keep her focus under difficult situations.

She didn’t know what could be more difficult than trying to focus with Carmilla constantly doing things to irritate her, she didn’t let it get to her though. She was stronger than that now.

She could do the spells and other exercises Perry wanted her to do all while determinedly ignoring Carmilla. There wasn’t anything Carmilla could do now to break her focus, and she’d definitely tried.

“Hey, Hollis, I brought donuts. Thought you could use a bit of sugar before we got started today and hey, maybe it will keep Grumpy here from bothering you too much if she’s busy eating,” Lafontaine said as they walked in the door carrying a box of the aforementioned donuts. Perry trailed in behind them.

Carmilla had jumped up when they came in, glaring hard at Lafontaine but then she snatched the box out of their hands and headed back over to the nest, content to eat and ignore them for now.

“Oh come on, you are supposed to share, you know?” Laura had stood up as well but hadn’t moved away from the nest yet so she reached down and plucked a donut from the box before moving over to the side of the room where they normally practiced.

Once she finished her donut and washed it down with some milk from the kitchen, they got to work. Running through some of the things they’d gone through yesterday to make sure Laura didn’t forget them and then starting in on some new things.

Laura really seemed to have a knack for fire and for manipulating things almost like telekinesis but it wasn’t referred to as that when it was done with magic, according to Perry. Laura just thought it was cool no matter what it was called.

Today Perry had dragged a large plastic bin over and had used a cup to fill it up a little bit with water then had Laura pick up just the water itself and suspend it in the air and then eventually move it into different shapes but making sure to keep it over the bin in case she lost control and dropped it.

She was doing good though, this was something that came really easy to her now that she knew how to control it. She was making the water spell out all their names just for fun when she caught sight of Carmilla stand up out of the corner of her eye. The demon seemed to be frowning down at her shirt which looked to be covered in what might have been jelly from one of the jelly donuts.

Carmilla wiped at it but it only smeared it worse so she shrugged and started pulling her shirt off right in the middle of the living room, paying no attention to the other people who were still in the room.

The shirt slipped over her head and Laura realized that Carmilla hadn’t bothered to wear a bra that day. It was one thing for Carmilla to be naked in the dark but a whole other thing to see her in the light of day.

Suddenly there was a sound similar to a very wet bubble popping and then the sound of Perry shrieking as the water Laura was manipulating burst and splattered on everyone and everything around them..

“Laura! What happened?” Perry stood there with her hands on her hips as water dripped off her.

“Uh… I lost focus?” Laura offered sheepishly as Lafontaine snorted and looked pointedly at Laura, they knew exactly what had distracted Laura.

“It was my understanding that showers were taken in the bathroom?” Carmilla appeared back in the living room after changing her shirt and looked at the mess Laura had made. She almost sounded genuinely confused but the smirk on her face gave her away, that she was just messing with them.

“Unless you are going to help, go back to watching TV or something,” Laura huffed as she walked into her bedroom to change clothes and then came back with some towels to try and soak up some of the water while Lafontaine and Perry went back to their places to change as well.

Stupid demons and their stupid lack of modesty.

* * *

 

After the water incident- Laura was starting to realize there certainly were a lot of incidents now that she was living with a demon- they practiced some more, this time with something with less potential to cause such a mess.

They had been working at it for a while now without a break and it was just past lunch time when Laura’s phone started ringing and she had to call for a time out to answer it.

“Hey, dad, what’s up?” Laura headed to the nest and flopped down, ignoring the glare she got from Carmilla when she landed a little too close to her for comfort.

“Not too much, just wanted to see how things were going with you,” he said and they talked for a little while about nothing in particular. She wanted to make some excuse to get off the phone so she could get back to practicing, she knew Perry was getting slightly impatient waiting on her to get off the phone but she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. He never called without a reason, even if it was just a silly one.

She was just about to flat out ask him what it was when he finally came out and said that he was actually on his way into town and would be there that evening to spend some time with her since he knew she wasn’t working today, something she’d let slip a few days ago when they talked.

Somehow, she calmly told him that she would see him later and then after a few more minutes of talking she finally hung up the phone and just laid there for a minute.

Then she flung herself up and out of the nest in a panic, “oh my god what am I going to do? Oh my god, he’s going to notice the couch is gone and he’s not going to like that Carmilla is here and he’s going to ask so many questions and we can’t let him know she’s a demon but he is totally going to find out and oh my god what am I going to do?”

“Whoa, whoa. Laura. Chill for a second. Just calm down. Focus on one thing at a time. Tell us what we can do to help,” Lafontaine was immediately by her side, rubbing circles on her back to try and calm her down before she worked herself into a legitimate anxiety attack.

“I don’t know. I don’t know! I just… I just need Carmilla to be gone so he doesn’t freak out but that’s not going to happen is it? Ugh, what am I going to do?”

Lafontaine looked to Perry and at her nod, Lafontaine made Laura look at them, “okay look. Here’s what we are going to do. You and I are going to go buy you a new couch and haul it back over here before he gets here. I think you said on the phone he wasn’t coming until later today, right? We should make it back in time. While we are gone, Perry here is going to clean up the mess from the old couch and make this apartment shine and talk to Carmilla about being on her best behavior. Maybe we can pass her off as an exchange student you are letting stay with you or something? I don’t know but they can figure it out. Let’s just get out of here for now, okay?”

Laura took a few deep breaths and nodded, she didn’t think this was going to work, her father was too paranoid to believe that she just randomly decided to host an exchange student in her house but Lafontaine’s plan was better than what she had, which was nothing.

“Good, grab your bag and let’s go so Perry can get started on tidying up this place because it sure does need it.”

Lafontaine ushered Laura out the door and Perry started really looking at the apartment, trying to see what she should start on first when her eyes landed on the nest of couch scraps that Carmilla was lounging on again, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to pick that up.”

Carmilla just grunted at her, snuggling down into the nest and ignoring the curly redhead who sighed and decided to work around the demon for now.

Perry had gone to the kitchen first, tackling the dirty dishes and wiping down counters then moved on to the bathroom which took longer than she expected to clean due to all the hair and gunk that resided in the shower.

Once the bathroom gained her approval she moved to the bedroom. She didn’t think Laura’s father would be looking into the bedroom much but the pile of clothes was slowly making its way out into the hallway so she thought it best to at least pick up some of the clothes and make it look somewhat presentable.

She was in the middle of trying to force an overly full dresser drawer shut when the bedroom door creaked open and she spun around to see the demon lounging in the doorway, “oh good, you’re up. Give me just a second and I will take care of the old couch.”

Perry turned back to the dresser, giving it one last hard shove so she didn’t see the odd look that passed across the demon’s face before she spoke.

“I’ll go.”

“Huh?” Perry turned around to face Carmilla, “you don’t have to, I’m almost done and you can do whatever you came in here to do. Just please don’t make too big of a mess until Laura’s father leaves.”

“No.”

“Pardon?” Perry asked with a sense of dread settling over her. She had hoped that Carmilla would at least try and be cooperative in this. For Laura’s sake if nothing else.

Carmilla’s face scrunched up like she really didn’t want to say what she was about to say, “I meant that I’ll go. As in go home. I’ll leave. Go back to the demon world or whatever it is that you call it.”

“Oh! Well, in that case, you need my help then, don’t you?”

She didn’t know why Carmilla had a sudden change of heart, but she definitely wasn’t going to question it. If Carmilla just went back, then all their troubles would be over and they could just get back to their lives. Wouldn’t that be nice?

She followed the demon back into the living room and set to work drawing the circle that was needed to send Carmilla back in the open space they were using to practice earlier. It had been a long time since she’d made one of those but she was able to draw it quickly and activate it, watching as it turned a pale pink color.

“Okay there, it’s done. It’s up to you now,” she turned around to talk to Carmilla directly but she wasn’t there. Had she already changed her mind?

“Okay.”

Perry whipped around to see Carmilla coming out of the kitchen with two packages of cookies in each hand, she was apparently taking some food to go.

Carmilla stood on the edge of the circle and mumbled some words that Perry couldn't understand even though she was still connected to her as her summoner and the circle started glowing a dark red.

“Thank you,” she said and Carmilla looked over her shoulder at her with a raised eyebrow, “for doing this I mean. I know Laura will appreciate it.”

Carmilla just nodded and smirked at her before taking a step into the circle and then she was gone in a flash of light.

 _Now then,_ Perry thought as she quickly erased the circle and then looked at the rest of the room, _time to get to work._


	7. Chapter 7

A few hours of couch shopping later, Lafontaine and Laura were pushing a brand new couch in a box on a dolly down the hallway to her apartment. Well the word “couch” might be a bit of an exaggeration, it was more like a futon but it would have to do. While she had enough money to afford an actual couch, even if it would cut into the cookie fund, they were all bulky and usually came already put together. Which would have saved them some time but no store could instantly deliver to her apartment so they had to go with what they could wrestle into the back of Lafontaine’s old truck.

It wasn’t easy, but they eventually got the large box up to her apartment and sat next to where the nest used to be. It looked strange without it taking up most of the living room floor. She was kind of going to miss it. It had been really comfy.

“Wow, looks good Perr!” Lafontaine called out as they started opening the box, ready to put together the couch so that maybe they could all relax a little bit before Laura’s father showed up.

“Thank you, do you need any help with that?”

“Nah, I think we’ve got it. Maybe if you could grab us something to drink though? I don’t know about Laura but I am parched after wrangling this baby in and out of the truck then into the elevator.”

Laura looked around the apartment as Perry headed into the kitchen, something didn’t feel right but she just brushed it off, thinking that it was just that the place was clean for once.

She didn’t have time to think about it anyway, her dad could show up any minute and they had to get this couch together and get the box and plastic from it either hidden or out of her apartment all together.

Maybe it was silly to rush around and try and do this before he got back instead of just telling him that she had to get a new couch but she knew if she didn’t have a couch he would ask what happened to the old one and she didn’t trust herself not to blurt out that her demon roommate had ripped it to shreds. She never was good at lying to him and he was likely already suspicious about all the things she’d had to leave out during their talks in the last couple of weeks.

At least now, there was a chance he may not even notice it was a new couch, he was likely to focus on the more obvious things.

Like her roommate who had horns and fangs.

Oh god, there was no way she was going to make it through this without something happening. She didn’t really know what he could or would do but he certainly would not be happy about it. He’d most likely demand to stay there with them so that he could protect her from Carmilla.

That would definitely go over well with the demon, she was sure.

Speaking of, where was she?

Lafontaine seemed to be wondering the same thing, “hey Perr? Where’s Dark and Broody at? I thought she would have wandered in here to see what the commotion was about by now, did you lock her up somewhere?”

Laura wanted to know Perry’s reply but she also wanted to get this couch together and in place as soon as possible so she busied herself with helping Lafontaine remove the box and wrap the pieces. Luckily for them, it didn’t look like it would take too long to fit the metal pieces together and place the mattress on top and get it into a couch position. It made her feel like she was in college again but she couldn’t exactly afford to be picky with her new couch.

“No, she. Uh,” Perry’s eyes flitted briefly over to where they normally practiced, most likely checking for the tenth time that the chalk had all been swept up, “she decided to go home.”

Laura dropped the metal part she was holding, letting it clang loudly against the other non assembled parts and turned to face Perry, “what do you mean?”

“She decided to go back to the demon world… Laura, I thought you would be happy?” Perry was looking at her with such a strange expression that Laura found herself backtracking a bit.

“No, I mean yeah, yeah I am. I just… Did you tell her to leave?”

“I didn’t tell her, she just decided to go while I was cleaning and needed my help to draw out the circle for the spell. I guess she was listening when you said you needed her to go earlier. Doesn’t this work out better though? Now you don’t even have to worry about your father asking questions. Come on, let’s get this put together and we will leave you to enjoy your peace until your father gets here, okay?”

Laura felt herself nod and turn back to the couch to get back to work but her mind was far away.

It was a good thing that Carmilla was gone, wasn’t it? Perry was right, she wouldn’t have to worry about her father asking any weird questions but now that she knew she was gone, the odd feeling from earlier made sense.

The place felt empty.

* * *

 

Her visit with her father went better than she had expected. He had questioned her choice in couch but she’d somehow managed to spin a tale about how she liked to work on the couch and she liked to spread things out and when she found the futon on sale, she thought it would be great to lay down sometimes and spread all her papers out. He believed it and she knew that she only managed to lie to him because it was mostly the truth. She had taken to doing a lot of her work, when she had to take some home, in the living room and it was usually spread out on the nest, much to Carmilla’s disapproval.

After they spent some time just talking and catching up with each other, Lafontaine and Perry came over to visit with him as well. He had met them many times before when they were all in college together so he was happy to see them. He was fond of Perry and her need to clean things and watch over his daughter but Lafontaine was only just now starting to grow on him. Their need to experiment and the fact that four out of five experiments usually ended badly had Laura’s father on edge for a long time but he was finally getting used to it now that the scientist hadn’t gotten Laura into trouble yet.

At least, that he knew of.

Even though all three of them protested that he really didn’t have to, Laura’s father decided to take them all out to dinner before he headed back home. They all had a good time, laughing and joking and while Laura joined in, she still couldn’t help but think about her roommate.

Her ex-roommate now.

It hadn’t even been a month now since Carmilla had appeared and even if she’d spent a week away from her after the couch incident it had become normal for the demon to be in the apartment. She most definitely was not the best roommate but she was her terrible roommate.

She was going to miss her.

Oh god she was going to miss Carmilla. Carmilla, who was literally a demon from hell.

What had her life turned into?

At that thought, Laura bit back a groan and everyone started getting up from the table they were at and she bid farewell to her father who was going to head out from the restaurant while she went back with Perry and Lafontaine.

It didn’t take long to make it back to her apartment as the place her father had wanted to go was just a short ways down the road but she dreaded going back the whole way there.

It was silly, but she didn’t want to go back to an empty apartment. She had lived with her dad up until college then during college she had a roommate so she was never alone. After college she had moved into this apartment and it had taken her a long time to get used to being alone. If Perry and Lafontaine hadn’t moved into the same floor, Laura didn’t know what she would have done.

Eventually, she had gotten used to it and even come to enjoy the peace and quiet having a place to herself gave her but now that she had had a taste of having someone around again, she missed it.

Even if the one she missed was a temperamental demon who didn’t even need to eat anything at all yet she always managed to eat all the cookies and sweet treats in the house.

It wasn’t too late but the sun was starting to set when they all arrived back at the building so Laura decided to go ahead and call it a night anyway, it had been a long day. She brushed her teeth and changed clothes before sliding into bed stretching out across the bed in a way she hadn’t been able to when Carmilla was there.

She was exhausted from the training earlier and the panic she had been in when she found out her father was coming over so she quickly felt her eyelids get heavy and she shut her eyes, expecting to fall asleep soon after but it never happened.

There was just something off. It was like she was waiting for something to happen.

Laura’s eyes popped open and she groaned as she realized why she hadn’t gone to sleep yet, she was waiting for Carmilla.

Normally Laura would head to bed and she’d almost be asleep when the demon would come in, strip out of her clothes, and slide into the other side of the bed before wrapping her arm around Laura.

And now Laura was still waiting for that even though she knew Carmilla wasn’t there anymore. She’d just gotten so used to having her there, she didn’t know how she would fall asleep now.

She didn’t even get to say goodbye to the demon either. She didn’t get to say anything. She didn’t even know she was going to leave!

With thoughts of how she would have rather faced her father’s questions if it meant Carmilla wouldn’t have left, Laura finally fell asleep with watery eyes.

* * *

 

The next morning, Laura didn’t have to go to work until later in the day so she took the opportunity to go shopping like she had originally planned. The cookie supplies were running low in the kitchen so she made her way to the store and bought way more cookies than she could ever eat by herself.

She hadn’t meant to get so many but it was habit by now and she figured that she could binge on them later that night and try to get herself out of this funk she had found herself in.

It was a good thing Carmilla was gone, now she didn’t have to worry about figuring out how to send her back. There was no way she would be able to hide Carmilla from her father for a year so it was a good thing that she decided to go back. It really was.

At least, that’s what she told herself the entire way to work.

* * *

 

“Um, Laura?”

Laura’s head shot up from where she was hunched over at her desk at work, trying to get the placement of her article just right when she heard Perry’s voice.

“Hey, what are you doing here? I mean, not that it isn’t great to see you but, why? Is something wrong?”

“Do you have a minute? So we can talk privately? Outside, perhaps?” Perry casually glanced around at all the other desks that filled the room Laura worked in and at all the people who were listening in on their conversation.

“Uh sure, let me just save this.”

Laura saved her work and then followed Perry back down the hall and out the front door. Outside there were barely any people and it wasn’t like they were going to pay attention to them but Perry clearly wanted more privacy than that and instead continued walking until they had reached Perry’s car and they both slid into their seats but Perry didn’t start the car.

“You’re scaring me, Perry, what’s with all the secrecy?”

“So uh, something happened while you were at work and I just wanted to come prepare you so that you wouldn’t um… freak out.”

Before Laura could point out that that was doing nothing to ease the dread she could feel settling in her stomach, Perry continued on.

“So Lafontaine was just certain that they had left something in your apartment, some science tool they were using to experiment with when we were training I think, and they just had to have it back right then so we didn’t think you’d really mind so we went over to your apartment and well…”

“Seriously, Perry, what’s going on? Just tell me, okay? I promise not to freak out.”

Perry too a deep breath and nodded, “she was just… there.”

“Who?”

“Carmilla,” Perry winced expecting Laura to freak out or blow up in anger or something but all she got was a shocked look and then a quickly muttered promise that she would be right back before the younger girl opened the car door and took off back into the building.

Only a few minutes later, Laura appeared again quickly throwing herself and her newly retrieved bag into the car seat, “come on then, let’s go!”

That wasn’t exactly the reaction she had been expecting.

* * *

 

Laura knew she had been practically bouncing in her seat the entire ride back to her apartment, which wasn’t very long at all really, and that it was starting to annoy Perry but she just couldn’t help it. Carmilla was back! She knew she really shouldn’t be this excited about it either but somehow the demon had grown on her.

Despite her excitement the entire ride there, once Laura came face to face with the door of her apartment, she hesitated.

It was one thing to want her terrible demon roommate back in theory when said terrible demon roommate wasn’t around but now that she was supposedly back on the other side of the door, it made things a bit different.

Why did she even come back? She left on her own, didn’t she? Didn’t she get tired of being here? Or did she really leave just so Laura wouldn’t have to explain her to her father?

Surely she didn’t do it just for her.

Perry had headed back to her apartment after Laura told her that she would be okay by herself but now Laura was thinking maybe having someone else there with her would have been better, so that she didn’t have to face this potentially awkward situation alone.

Before she could turn around and walk over to Perry’s door, her own door was thrown open and she was suddenly staring at the dark haired demon she had missed.

“Uh, hey,” she managed to stammer out and Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at her.

“Hey.”

Carmilla turned away from the door, leaving it wide open for Laura to follow her and headed straight for the new couch, sprawling out on it just like normal, carefully avoiding the stack of empty cookie containers that had somehow appeared by the couch since Laura had left for work that morning.

How did she eat that many in such a short amount of time? How was the place already a mess?

Laura shook her head with a small smile and shut the door behind her.

* * *

 

 _Seriously though, why did I think her being back would be a good thing?_ Laura thought to herself as she fought with a particularly nasty shower clog, courtesy of Carmilla. She was just going to leave it until the next time the demon took a shower so that she could see how gross it was but then she thought that Carmilla would probably just ignore it and let the water over flow onto the floor if she took a long enough shower. That, and as she stepped into the tub, it started moving so it had to go. Immediately.

It seemed that in the small amount of time that the demon was gone, Laura had only focused on the good things- like having her company there and sleeping beside her- and not on the bad things- little hair monsters in the shower, eating all the cookies, brooding all over the place.

Later, after Laura got her shower and changed into some pj pants and a shirt and after she showed Carmilla the couch could lay back and become a bed, she realized that maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Yes the shower drain was gross and Carmilla was still a terrible roommate but as she stretched out on the futon- it wasn’t quite as comfortable or roomy as the nest was- and Carmilla settled down beside her and gave her one of those very rare shy smiles she did sometimes, Laura thought it might just all work out in the end.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this, this took a lot of time and patience on my part not to post it early. 
> 
> Thank you so much to Ciarabarclay for the amazing fanart!
> 
> And thank you to the host of the Carmilla Big Bang Project for putting up with all of us and getting this organized. Hope to do it again next year!


	8. Chapter 8

**Excerpt from Summon Me part 2: "Stay With Me"**

_“I just don’t quite understand,” the dark woman said as she trailed her hand across the top of the couch she was standing next to before looking straight at Laura, “what is it that is keeping my sister tied to this world? Is it you?”_

_A truly devilish smile spread across the woman’s face, “we will just have to fix that then, won’t we?”_

_Then she lunged._

 


End file.
